What Do Printing News and an Instagram Post Have in Common?

Three people were walking down the street in San Francisco. Two were Millennials, and one was checking her Instagram feed. Suddenly she came across an image so stunning, so beautiful, that she burst out, “That’s print worthy!”

“I couldn’t believe it,” recalls Kelley Holmes, vice president and group publisher of WhatTheyThink Media, who was walking with her son, Ryan, and his Instagramming girlfriend at the time. “In this industry, we are so used to having to defend the value of print that her response really struck me. I thought, ‘Did she really just say that?’”

As Holmes thought about it, it struck her how differently those of us in the industry see print and how the younger generation sees print. It is often so different...and the opposite of what we might think. “If you've been in the printing industry a long time, some of us feel that print isn't what it used to be or that it is being attacked by other platforms,” she explains. “But to the younger generation, print is seen as the ideal. Any image can be digital, but if it’s incredible—truly incredible—only then is it deemed worthy to be printed.”

What does this have to do with Printing News? Everything. The content of Printing News is drawn from the published content of PrintingNews.com and WhatTheyThink.com. It’s the best of the best from the two websites the previous month. It is content so good that it is determined by the editorial team of WhatTheyThink Media to be “print worthy.”

“Seeing print from the eyes of a Millennial reminds us how special print is,” says Holmes. “That’s the idea behind curating the content for Printing News. The printed version provides a platform that has real, lasting value...and not every piece can get in. It has to be ‘print worthy’!”